Concluding Statement about Theatre 101

Before entering this class I was very unfamiliar with the theatre just as a majority of my classmates were as well. Now that I am approaching the end of the journey in Theatre 101 I would defiantly have to say that I learned a lot from this class. Not only did I learn a lot but I now have a new found interest for the theatre and I would like to continuing learning about the theatre once I am finished with this class.

One thing that I really enjoyed about this class was the discussion board. It is one thing to read a chapter and take a short quiz to assess your understanding of the material; however, it is another to be able to write about what you read and how you interpret it. The discussion board gave all of us in this class the ability to comment on things that we learned throughout the class. One really nice thing about the discussion board was that we were able to look at each other's post which was very helpful. For example, a lot of the times before I would post my thoughts on a certain discussion post I would review what my classmates put. This helped me get my thoughts flowing and most of the time gave me a different perspective to look at things in. It also allowed me to see what me and my classmates agreed on and disagreed on. In the discussion post about reflecting on a performance that you have done I found that many of us had similar answers about how we were scared during performances in front of large crowds; however, in the discussion post about what role would we play in the theatre I found that most of us had different responses. This goes to show that theatre and different questions about theatre affect people differently.

Another thing that I learned in this class was that theatre is different in every culture beside the four universals of theatre that are true no matter where you are. I found this interesting because even though different culture's view theatre differently than we do here in the United States there theatre still has these four things that ours does also. These are that theatre is live, ephemeral, collaborative, and a synthesis of many arts. As we all know theatre is live. If it wasn't live it wouldn't be theatre, it would be a movie. It is also ephemeral which means that it is live, in the moment, and that no element can be exactly replicated because it depends on the interaction of live actors and the audience. I find this very interesting because you never really think about how each performance is different from the previous one. It is different because of this interaction between the performers and the audience. The audience changes every performance and therefor so does this interaction. Theatre is also collaborative in the sense that there is a group of people working towards a common goal. Putting on a great performance. This aspect of theatre is commonly overlooked but throughout the course of this semester I have learned that it takes a lot of people working together to put on a great performance. Finally, theatre is a synthesis of many arts. So many people are involved in theatrical creation because theatre uses so many artistic materials for a combined effect. A performance could not be put on without the help of a director, playwrights, musicians, choreographers and many other people. Theatre really brings together all the arts to put on a performance.

My favorite part of this class was when we learned that theatre is in every one's life. Everyone plays numerous roles throughout their day whether it be the role of a mother, a father, a daughter, or a student people are playing roles. Who ever thought that they were connected to theatre? Most likely only the people who have taken a theatre class. It has come to my attention that life is a theatre and depending on the different environment we are in or the different people we are around our role, or performance changes. We ourselves are actors.

Overall, I am very happy that I decided to take this class. I feel that I have learned a lot about the theatre and that was my goal in the first place. I came into this class with no knowledge about the theatre what so ever and I am going to exit this class with the understanding of the many worlds of theatre and the interest to learn more on my own time.